The embodiments described herein relate generally to image acquisition machines such as copiers and/or printers and, more particularly, to a system and method for selectively acquiring images from a hardcopy document.
Image acquisition machines acquire images from hardcopy documents in an image acquisition process also known as scanning. These machines can be scanners, copiers, multifunction machines, or other known devices capable of acquiring images from hardcopy pages. The acquired images can then be reproduced or printed in hardcopy form, such as in copying, or saved in an electronic form for later processing and/or printing.
Image acquisition machines typically have an image capturing device, also referred to as an image acquisition or image forming device, which acquires the image from the hardcopy document. Various known sensors can be used by the image acquisition device to capture the image from the hardcopy page. A charge coupled device (CCD) is one example of an image capturing device sensor commonly used in image acquisition machines such as scanners. A CCD is a small light-sensitive diode which converts photons of light into an electrical charge. The brighter the light that hits each single CCD element, the greater the electrical charge that the particular element generates. Typically, a plurality of CCD devices are arranged in an array, and the hardcopy document is illuminated and passed over the array, or the array is passed over the document, to acquire the image or images from the hardcopy document and convert them into an electronic form. Flatbed scanners, also called desktop scanners, sheet-fed scanners, and even handheld scanners use CCD devices to acquire images from hardcopy documents. Other sensors such as contact image sensors, photomultiplier tubes, other photoreceptors, or other known devices can also be used.
Typically, the entire page of the hardcopy document is scanned so that all of the image portion of the document is acquired. However, this can present a problem when a user wants to acquire less than all of the image or images on the hardcopy page. People often resort to covering portions of the hardcopy page with an opaque material, such as paper, to prevent the covered image(s) from being acquired, or cutting away portions from the original hardcopy document with scissors to remove image portions that they don't want acquired when the document is scanned. All of these methods impose undesired complexity and burden. It is, therefore, desirable to provide in improved system and method of selectively acquiring images from a hardcopy document using an image acquisition machine.